British Greens responding to the intersection of anti-Zionism and antisemitism

Monthly Archives: July 2012

A Green Party member, Marco Schreuder, deputy in the 62-member Federal Council of Austria (Bundesrat), stood up as the lone dissenting voice against anti-Israel legislation passed on Monday.

The legislation singled out Israel’s anti-terror policy on detention for condemnation but – astonishingly – failed to acknowledge its neighbours’ similar or worse policies, including Syria, the paramilitary Israel-eliminationist organisations which operate on Israel’s borders, and the draconian detention measures meted out in Palestinian law to dissenters and gay people. These are well-documented by human rights organisations, feed the region’s authoritarian tendencies and it is seriously strange that they are ignored by the Bundesrat.

If the Middle East is a playground full of bullies, and you single out one bully for a kicking while leaving the other bullies to go about their violent business unhindered, then you’re obviously a bad politician. And if the bully you’re so singularly and enthusiastically attacking is Jewish, then they may reasonably feel attacked as a Jew.